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Schiavo’s family remains unswayed

Terri Schiavo's sister, Suzanne Vitadamo, discusses the autopsy on Schiavo's body as her father, Bob Schindler, stands by at the National Right to Life Committee's annual convention Thursday in Bloomington, Minn. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Mitch Stacy Associated Press
Terri Schiavo's sister, Suzanne Vitadamo, discusses the autopsy on Schiavo's body as her father, Bob Schindler, stands by at the National Right to Life Committee's annual convention Thursday in Bloomington, Minn. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

LARGO, Fla. — An autopsy that found Terri Schiavo suffered from severe and irreversible brain-damage did nothing to change her parents’ position that she deserved to live and might have gotten better with therapy.

The long-awaited report Wednesday found that the 41-year-old woman’s brain had shrunk to about half the normal size for a woman her age when she died March 31 after her feeding tube was disconnected. The autopsy also determined she was blind.

Bob and Mary Schindler disputed the results, maintaining that their daughter interacted with them and tried to speak. Their attorney said the family plans to discuss the autopsy with other medical experts and may take some unspecified legal action.

“We knew all along that Terri was profoundly brain damaged,” said Schiavo’s brother, Bobby Schindler. “We simply wanted to bring her home and care for her. It all goes back to this quality of life.”

The findings vindicated Schiavo’s husband in his long battle with his in-laws that engulfed the courts, Congress and the White House and divided the country about the right to die. Michael Schiavo and court-appointed doctors said the woman had no hope of recovery.

The autopsy also found no evidence that Terri Schiavo was strangled or otherwise abused before her sudden 1990 collapse — countering allegations by the Schindlers that she was abused by her husband.

However, Gov. Jeb Bush said Thursday he might ask a state attorney to investigate other allegations by the Schindlers that Michael Schiavo waited more than an hour to call 911 after his wife’s collapse.

“There’s some doubt about when she did collapse and how long it took … for the 911 call to be made,” Bush said. “Which I think is worthy of some investigation. I don’t know what form it would take.”

Michael Schiavo’s attorney, George Felos, didn’t return a phone message seeking comment Thursday.

Medical examiners could not say for certain what caused the collapse, long thought to have been brought on by an eating disorder.

George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, said the findings back up their contentions made “for years and years” that Terri Schiavo had no hope of recovery. He said Michael Schiavo plans to release autopsy photographs of her shrunken brain.

The Schindlers fought their son-in-law in court over their daughter’s fate for nearly seven years, battling to the end with conservatives at their side.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a surgeon who had questioned Schiavo’s diagnosis during the intense national debate on whether to remove her feeding tube, said the autopsy brought “a very sad chapter to a close.”